Oh joy an election

So. In case the world wasn’t complicated enough (and assuming that Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un haven’t had their nuclear war by then), we get a general election. You might have thought that after the last few months, if there was one lesson people should have learned, it’s when you call an election you may not get what you expect. But no, so we have another Boaty McBoatface moment.

Why? Probably because after the “phoney Brexit” with everything just carrying on, there are the first signs of problems with businesses closing, job losses, rising inflation without wage rises and Mrs May wants to get her majority up in case things get sticky and before people start hurting. And this looks like the moment to get her majority up, while she can still blame everything on the EU. And of course it’s looking good for her party, so what the hell if we take our eyes off actually doing Brexit for a month or two. But as the Daily Mash so presciently observes, calling an election now suggests the shit will really have hit the fan by 2020.

First up is Arron Banks announcing he’s going up against Douglas Carswell in the great UKIPer-than-thou standoff (though apparently he has to re-join UKIP first), so at least we might get a bit of a laugh and the people of Clacton an opportunity to confuse yourself. Come on Farage, you stand for Clacton as well so we can all enjoy it.

Next of course we get a number of MPs deciding they do not want to stand again (Alan Johnson, for instance, deciding he is too old). And George Osborne, because he’s got too many jobs to be fagged with the effort of electioneering (especially when he’s not on Teresa’s side so presumably one of the Mail’s saboteurs (couldn’t they find a good English word? Why not “wreckers”?)

But what will happen? Where candidates have to be chosen, local parties will grill them about Brexit, and then once they get chosen, the local press will do it again, and then the whole chaotic thing will turn into referendum mark two. And by the end of it we’ll all be there with Brenda from Bristol. Too much politics!